GUILDERLAND — Guilderland is upgrading its website to be more accessible to residents.

“There’s going to be what’s called a citizen-requests tracker,” Supervisor Peter Barber told the town board at its June 6 meeting, “where citizen issues come up and then there’ll be a response and then you’ll be able to track it as it goes through …

“We’re also going to have what’s called a community-voice page where people can express their views and opinions on different issues that may come up whether it’s the comprehensive plan or who knows, maybe developing a park in a certain area.”

The board voted unanimously in favor of the roughly $46,000 investment, which includes a year of maintenance; after that, maintenance will cost about $8,500 per year.

“It will be about six months to design and to install the website,” Barber said.

Jeff Gregory, who handles information technology for Guilderland, said in a memo to the board that, for the past year, he had met with town staff “in anticipation of the end-of-life status for our current website platform running Drupal 7.”

He said he’d done extensive research of other vendors and also talked with other municipalities, and decided to stay with Guilderland’s current vendor, CivicPlus, and upgrade to its Engage Central product. 

CivicPlus, which was founded in 1998 and is based in Kansas, writes in its literature, “We empower municipal leaders to transform interactions between residents and government into consistently positive experiences that elevate resident satisfaction, increase revenue, and streamline operations.”

“The primary overall benefit,” says Gregory of changing to Engage Central, “is ease of use for both residents and Town staff. The platform is based on a drag and drop method and a 2 clicks motto of getting where you want to be in 2 clicks.”

There will also be a Notify Me module, which allows web users to subscribe to email or text message notifications from the Calendar, News Flash, Job Postings, Bid Postings, Alert Center, Agenda Center, and Blog modules. 

Barber said a form builder will be included “so we can develop our in-house forms … so you won’t have to wait for a check to come through.”

Councilwoman Amanda Beedle, referencing the feature where citizens can express their opinions, asked, “Are we going to have a moderator to that section?”

When Barber said he didn’t know, Beedle suggested an engagement policy that, for example, stipulates “no hate speech will be allowed.”

Barber said, although he didn’t know the details, he thought there “may be some built-in program to try to filter that out.”

Resident Gerd Beckmann said that, in the past, when he had tried to submit photographs, “even an iPhone picture exceeded the amount” the current town website could handle. He hoped the new version would allow larger content to be submitted.

Barber said he thought it would and urged people with questions to check with Gregory.

Councilwoman Christine Napierski said that she was “very impressed” with the proposal. 

“I think it’s going to be great for the town — for the residents, for the town employees,” said Napierski, calling it a “wonderful improvement” and a “good investment.”

Other business

In other business at its June 6 meeting, the Guilderland Town Board:

— Heard praise from resident John Haluska for the new pocket park at the Carman Road roundabout near the site of the now-demolished abandoned Nedco Pharmacy.

Haluska also asked, as he frequently has, about the plight of the abandoned Rustic Barn on Route 20. Haluska noted that Ryan Caruso, whose property borders the blighted Rustic Barn property, has long wanted to purchase the site “but we need help in being able to navigate the labyrinth of whatever the county and perhaps the town is doing regarding the non-activity,” said Haluska.

Barber responded, “I think you know that’s before the court right now because the Rustic Barn got swept in with all the other properties that are subject to tax foreclosure, and trying to pull out one property out of a list of more than 100 properties requires some effort that I’ve been work with the county attorney on”;

— Accepted a waterline easement on West Old State Road following the 2010 planning board approval of a five-lot subdivision on Route 158.

“The purpose of this,” said a memo from the town planner, Kenneth Kovalchick, to the town board, “is if lands to the east of the subdivision are ever subdivided in the future the Town would have the necessary easement in place to make a connection to the proposed waterline that will terminate at the Lot 1 driveway.”

“Better to get those easements in place now then go back and try to get the easement later,” said Barber;

— Awarded a contract to Family Danz, the lowest qualified bidder at $850,000, to upgrade the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system at the town hall. Four other companies bid, the highest at $1.3 million.

The plan, Barber said, is to not just simply replace the current ceiling units but to improve efficiency. Since the Family Danz bid was “by far the lowest,” Barber said, “there was some concern about, were they low for a reason. And we did check with their references and they’ve done work in other towns”;

— Awarded a contract for tax collection software to Edmunds GovTech Inc., as lowest qualified bidder, for $20,550.

The request was made by the town clerk, Lynne Buchanan, who said she was having difficulty printing tax bills with the current software. “Their solution to my problem was, I was to get larger paper to print the tax bills on,” Buchanan told the board, adding later, “It was horrible.”

So she talked to other municipalities about what they used and went with the one used by the majority of towns in the state. As for the issue with printing tax bills, Buchanan said, “They told me it was a simple solution. They told me what they were going to do [was] move a dialog box down and I would have all this room to print tax lines. I got them to reduce their costs by $600 annually.”

She added, “They also will connect with my online tax-processing payment.” With the current software, Buchanan said, “Residents can type in the dollar amount so, if they want to pay me $5 of their $10,000 tax bill, they can, and then I’m chasing them down. So this way, with this company, they’re going to upload my file online. And then people, when they type in their tax bill, it’ll show that they owe X amount of dollars and they won’t have a choice … they have to pay what’s due”;

— Appointed James Welsch as assistant superintendent of the town’s Water and Wastewater Management Department. The recommendation was made by the newly named superintendent, Bill Bremigen, who replaced retiring Timothy McIntyre.

“James is very important in all aspects of water and sewer planning and implementation, which helps with the day to day operations of the department,” wrote Bremigen, calling Welsch “a very valuable asset” who “has the respect of the staff he oversees, which makes everyone more dedicated and creates a good work environment.”

Welsch is filling Bremigen’s former post.

“I think it’s great to see these internal advancements,” said Barber;

— Authorized signature of a water warrant to collect $409,311; and

— Heard from Barber there will be a “grand reopening ceremony” for the updated Guilderland Performing Arts Center at Tawasentha Park on Thursday, June 22, at 7 p.m. followed by a concert by the Guilderland Town Band.

“Starting this year,” said Barber, “we’re going to have food trucks … to support our small businesses.”